Integrated Financial Management Information Systems: A ... - Frp2.org

intermittent electricity, the traditional approach to implementing an IFMIS system—installing file
servers at each remote location—would simply not have been feasible. Each system update or change
would require multiple installations, and regular equipment maintenance would be required in
hundreds of locations—many of them unsuitable for advisors to visit. Instead, the IFMIS has been
built to operate so as to resemble in all things a web-based application. The entire environment is run
through three terminal servers in the Ministry of Finance’s Data Center in Baghdad. As such, the
cadre of IT professionals needed to support the system is much smaller and the infrastructure
requirements are made manageable.
Roll out of the IFMIS system began in the spring of 2005. By early 2007, the IFMIS was
implemented throughout Iraq—in spending units cutting across all of the country’s governorates and
all Government ministries. The IFMIS captured approximately 85 percent of actual expenditures and
99 percent of actual revenue. 166 spending agencies were fully trained in the use of the system. 112
GOI sites were using the system to enter data on a daily basis, and were reconciling with the legacy
system.
In June 2007, the IFMIS was shut down and USAID assistance for the project was suspended in the
wake of the kidnapping of a technical advisor and his security compliment from the Ministry of
Finance’s Data Center. 4 Fearing the tenuous security situation, staff were reluctant to return to the
Data Center.
In January 2008, the Iraqi Ministry of Finance requested USAID to restart technical assistance for the
IFMIS work to be carried on. As of April 2008, advisors were working with the Ministry of Finance
to bring the system back online and an agreement had been signed for the GOI to fund the completion
of the system’s expansion to include almost all national government spending units. 5
KAZAKHSTAN
Kazakhstan’s IFMIS implementation faced many hurdles, chief among which was the choice of
software. The software selected for the core applications was Oracle Financials—an excellent
package, but a system that requires a full communications backbone since all data are processed
centrally. This issue had not been addressed in the tender and was completely ignored during the
implementation phase. As a consequence of this oversight, the system integrator and the government
implementation team had to make a special visit to the World Bank in Washington to negotiate a
further loan of more than US$25 million to put in place a satellite-based communications backbone.
This was hardly the extent of the obstacles faced in installing Kazakhstan’s IFMIS. To begin with,
CoA development took longer than planned, delaying many other phases of system development.
Secondly, the Government made the decision not to implement various key modules of the software,
most notably payroll, due to lack of financial resources. This turned out to be a grave mistake, given
the size of the public sector workforce and the salary and benefits management this entailed.
Third, the Government failed to ensure full sustainable support to the expansion of the system beyond
the initial installation. Many government IFMIS systems encounter this problem. In an ideal world,
systems should have the flexibility and the sustained support needed to grow with changes and
improvements in fiscal policy and management, and to meet the increasing information requirements
of a maturing government administration.
4 As of this writing, 10 months after being taken captive, the technical advisor is still being held hostage.
5 USAID assistance, by law, cannot assist the military and police establishments.
PART 2: COUNTRY CASES 21